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| Einstein's Unfinished Symphony : The Story of a Gamble, Two Black Holes, and a New Age of Astronomy
ISBN: 9780300228120
Platform/Publisher: Ebook Central / Yale University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Limited; Download: 7 Days at a Time
Subjects: Science: Physics; Science;
This updated edition of the New York Times Notable Book recounts the long hunt for Einstein's predicted gravitational waves--and celebrates their discovery.
In February 2016, astronomers announced that they had verified the last remaining prediction of Einstein's general theory of relativity--vibrations in space-time, called gravitational waves. Humanity can now tune in to a cosmic orchestra. We have heard the chirp of two black holes dancing toward a violent union. We will hear the cymbal crashes from exploding stars, the periodic drumbeats from swiftly rotating pulsars, and maybe even the echoes from the Big Bang itself.
More than a decade earlier, Marcia Bartusiak chronicled the gamble taken by astronomers who were determined to prove Einstein right. In their quest to detect gravitational waves, they built the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, the most accurate measuring devices ever created. In this updated edition, Bartusiak brings the story to a thrilling close with the triumphant discovery of gravitational waves made with the LIGO.
"An important, multifaceted scientific story...part theoretical physics, part astronomy, part experimental physics, part engineering."--James Ryerson, New York Times Book Review
Marcia Bartusiak is professor of the practice, graduate program in science writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the award+'winning author of six previous books, including most recently Black Hole: How an Idea Abandoned by Newtonians, Hated by Einstein, and Gambled on by Hawking Became Loved. |
